The Coalition for Louisiana Public Education is the brainchild of St. Tammany Parish School Board President Jack Loup.

The coalition, in large part was formed in February by the president of the St. Tammany Parish School Board, Jack Loup. About "a dozen or so" attended the first meeting more than two months ago, Loup said, and today the membership list includes those from at least 10 state-wide groups, among them the Louisiana School Boards Association, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents.

The coalition's short-term goal, officials say, is to assist state lawmakers on making the "hard decisions," especially when it comes to the 30-plus proposed bills in the house and senate which involve elementary and/or secondary education. Overall, Loup says his hope is to get Louisiana moving up from the bottom of national rankings.

Already, the coalition has gotten the attention of the state's superintendent of education, Paul Pastorek, and it's safe to say they don't see eye to eye.

The coalition highlighted 10 areas of need before the legislative session began with concerns of how the state doles out money to school districts. At the top of the list included the freezing of the growth factor in the Minimum Foundation Plan (for the third consecutive year) and unfunded mandates.

Pastorek countered with, "They're asking for more money ... (while) every other agency of government is getting cut, and I find it, frankly, shocking that people would demand more money, but not offer anything substantive in return."

Not so, says Loup, and he says his group has offered solutions, and it's not all about money. Non-fiscal items on the coalition's agenda include accountability issues and a call to an end of micromanagement. Also, they would like to see the state hold off on implementing a plan on letter grades for school districts and pay for teachers and principals based on their assessments.

He said it's especially important to "let the local districts govern themselves. I know what we need better than they do."

Coalition member Donald Songy, associate executive director of the School Boards Association, says one of his biggest problems is that so many people making decisions on education are non-educators. He hopes some of them will come to lean on those who areas of expertise is education.

"The state superintendent is an attorney; he's not an educator," said Songy, who retired last year as the superintendent of schools in Ascension Parish. "A lot of these people have very limited experience in running a school or running a school district.

"We have people in this coalition who have been there and done it and have been at the forefront of reform. And they're not scared of reform; they're not scared to try new things. They just don't necessarily want to go in line with everything Paul Pastorek says. Experience will often times tell you that something won't work."

Pastorek, meanwhile, thinks many of the coalition's ideas have been tried, and traditional ways aren't working here. He says the state needs to stop living in the past.

"I am talking about failed schools, and we have hundreds of failed schools in this state, schools parents don't want to send kids to," he said. "People want to go back to the '50s in the way we deliver education, and that's never going to fix the kinds of schools we have that are broken.

"What I do know is this: There are 230,000 children in the state of Louisiana who are below grade level. I know that two-thirds of the schools in this state have 25 percent of their kids failing. So if traditional education has bought us that, I don't want any more of it."

Loup reiterated Songy's point, that the failings of the state's recent past can be attributed to too many decisions being made without consulting those in the know. He wants legislators to give his group a chance to bend their ears.

"This could be a historic group," Loup said. "Everyone says we're tired of this and we need to change it, and dadgummit, this is the group that's going to do it. ... If we sit down and these legislators listen to us, they might say, 'You know what, these people in education know what they want, and they should know what's best for education. Let me go ahead and listen to them.'

"We've got 50,000 retired teachers in this state. Each of the unions have thousands of people in them. We've got 680 board members. Let's get the word out."